


The Ninth Circle

by Moonsault, orphan_account



Series: The Darkling Plain [3]
Category: World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Angst, Episode Tag, Friendship, Gen, Going to Hell, Regret, Rescue Missions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-22
Updated: 2015-09-22
Packaged: 2018-04-22 21:37:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4851383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moonsault/pseuds/Moonsault, https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The last thing Seth Rollins knew, Kane had grabbed him in the ring in Laredo and dragged him down--somewhere.  Why is it so <i>cold</i>?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Ninth Circle

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place in the same world as [Painted Demon, Knight of Ink,](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4521219) in which the supernatural elements of WWE are real, and both the main roster and NXT have "squads" that deal with supernatural threats.

_Fuck, it’s cold. Why is it so cold in Laredo?_

Seth Rollins shook his head to try and clear it, and felt something rattling around his face.

His hair, he realized dimly. His hair was frozen solid, the curls turned to icicles. What the _fuck…_

His eyes refused to open at first, the lashes frozen shut. He tried to raise his hands to wipe them clear, but he couldn’t--there was a moment of sheer panic as he realized he couldn’t move his arms or legs. Had that bastard Kane paralyzed him? Locked him in some storage refrigerator? A sudden gust of wind hit his face, stinging with bits of ice, and he yelped in pain. He was outdoors? The last thing he remembered was--he shuddered again as he remembered the hand gripping his face, dragging him below the ring, into the darkness. It was _so cold…_

His teeth were chattering and his face was numb. He squinted his eyes desperately and finally got his lashes clear enough to open his eyes, then almost wished he hadn’t.

Just below his chin he could see a vast sheet of ice stretching to the horizon. Ice! He was trapped in a frozen lake? Adrenaline spiked through him and he struggled to move, but it was no good, the ice held him fast. “ _Kane!”_ he bellowed--or tried to, but something went wrong and the word came out high and terrified and shaking. “Let me out of here! Kane!”

“Yes?” said a voice just to his right, polite and urbane, and Seth would have jumped if he could have. With an effort, he turned his neck, shaking his icy hair out of his eyes, to see a stranger’s head nearby--like him, frozen below the neck in the icy lake. He had dark hair and large, dark eyes, and tears ran from them, freezing on his face as they fell.

“You’re not Kane,” Seth managed to say.

“That is my name,” said the stranger. “Though I may not be the one you are looking for.”

It was all too surreal, Seth’s brain couldn’t seem to process it. “What are you doing here?” he stammered.

“Suffering,” said the man. “That is the purpose of Hell, is it not?”

 _”Hell?”_ Seth almost started to laugh, but his teeth started chattering and he couldn’t make them stop. “What--what are you talking about, I’m a _professional wrestler_ , I--I--” He couldn’t seem to get his breath all of a sudden; the cold seemed to be biting into his heart. “I thought Hell was supposed to be hot,” he gasped.

“Not here,” his companion said. “This is the ninth circle, the deepest level of Hell, reserved for people like us.”

“Like--like us?”

The man smiled slightly. “Those who betray their kin.” As Seth gaped at him, the man went on: “This ring of the circle is called Caina, after myself--not to boast, but I was the first here.”

“This--this--you’re crazy, this is all--I’m dreaming--”

“I’m afraid not,” Cain said. “But it could be worse.”

“ _Worse?_ I’m frozen up to my neck in solid ice, how--how--”

“In the deeper circles, those who have betrayed their liege lords are frozen with their heads turned eternally upward, so their tears freeze solid in their eyes,” Cain said. “Here we are granted the boon of being allowed to bow our heads and weep.” Tears slipped from his eyes as he spoke, dripping from his chin. 

“This can’t be--” Tears of fear and frustration were forming in Seth’s eyes; he gasped for air and felt it biting into his lungs. “I should be going numb. It shouldn’t keep hurting.”

“That would be a mercy,” murmured Cain. “And there is no mercy here.”

There was silence for a moment, broken only by the icy wind moaning across the lake and small, choked sounds that Seth realized slowly were coming from his own throat.

“Whom did you betray?” Cain asked politely, with the air of one making small talk.

“My shield-mates,” Seth said. No use denying it here, in this crazy dream. It had to be a dream. “My brothers. My friends. But I had a _reason--_ ”

“--Hell does not care what your reasons were,” said Cain. “It cares only that you were faithless.”

“Shut up,” muttered Seth. “Shut up, shut up, _shut up._ ” With nothing else to look at, with nothing else to listen to, all he could seem to hear, over and over again, was the sound of that steel chair hitting Roman’s back, the gasp Dean had made when it connected with his gut. Such small sounds amidst the roar of the crowd and the pounding of adrenaline in his ears; if you had asked him just yesterday he would have said he didn’t even remember them, that he hadn’t even _heard_ them. But apparently he had and he did, just like apparently he remembered the look in Dean’s eyes, baffled and lost, or the grief on Roman’s face as he limped out of the arena at Wrestlemania without his--without _the_ \--title. He blinked hard, trying to vanish the vision, and felt tears trickling from the corners of his eyes-- _no._ Yet there they were.

In the icy wastes of Hell, barren of all but regret, Seth Rollins bowed his head and wept.

Time passed, though it seemed to have no meaning, there with nothing but the wind and his tears. Had it been hours, or years? Cain had fallen silent, and Seth didn’t want to speak to him, even though loneliness was gnawing at him like a different kind of cold. He would be here forever, he knew with brittle clarity, and it was perhaps no more than he deserved.

When at last he heard new, familiar voices, he almost thought it was a dream--another dream, a dream within this dream. They were soft voices, blurred at the edges with a gentle Southern accent that reminded Seth of hickory smoke and leather, fireflies and whiskey and warm things that he had nearly forgotten, and it seemed like he was never going to be empty of tears.

“Jeez,” said Joey Mercury, his voice still far away behind Seth, just barely reaching his frozen ears, “I wish we still had those sun lamps we got to use against the troll.”

“Didn’t make any sense to keep them once we realized Lesnar wasn’t the right kind of troll,” Jamie said. “Not like we could have lugged them down into Hell with us anyway. Heavy sons-of-guns.”

“We got him off Seth’s case anyway, didn’t we?” Seth heard the pride in Joey’s voice and could see in his mind the way he threw his chest out, strutting. 

Jamie Noble chortled. “Still can’t believe we managed to find that urn to lure the Undertaker out of Parts Unknown and sic him on Lesnar. Worked like a charm, though, didn’t it?”

Joey sighed. “All that work, and then the boss had to go and piss off Kane. Sometimes I think maybe they don’t pay us enough.”

“Well, they don’t know all the moonlighting we do.”

“Moonlighting, heh, that’s a good way to put it.” Joey and Jamie chuckled together for a moment, and Seth let the sound wrap around him like a warm blanket. “Hey, there he is! Seth!”

There was a sound of running, and two pairs of boots appeared in front of Seth’s eyes. He tried to crane his head to look up at them, and they quickly squatted down on the ice to make it easier for him to look them in the eye. “Hey, Boss,” said Joey’s voice, slow and careful. “We’re here. We’re gonna get you out of here. Jeez, Jamie, he’s--aw, Seth, don’t be mad,” he said, looking into his face with a worried expression. “We got here as fast as we could, I swear.”

“I’m not mad,” Seth croaked. “I’m not.”

“He’s not,” Jamie said quietly, and Seth felt warm fingers touching his face, wiping away the frozen tears. “Hey. It’s okay. I can tell this was rough, but we got you.”

“How--how did you--”

“Funny story,” said Joey, smiling--Joey Mercury, smiling in Hell. “We were in L.A., visiting a friend of mine in the hospital and watching Raw, and we saw what happened to you.”

“Little-known fact,” said Jamie, “But all wrestling rings can be used as portals to Hell. Supposedly it’s all the negative energy. Anyway, Joey’s buddy Johnny told us where there was a _really_ powerful ring nearby that had recently been abandoned, so we hurried over there with some salt and sage, and it was easy after that.”

“It helped we could skip the first eight circles,” said Joey. He rested his hand on Seth’s head. “We were pretty sure you’d be here.”

“I don’t understand,” said Seth. “I don’t understand any of this.”

“It’s okay,” said Jamie, “You don’t have to, man.”

“Probably better if you don’t, actually,” added Joey. 

Jamie was pulling little packets of powder and small tealight candles out of his pockets. “All you need to know is that we provide more than your standard security. Someone’s got to keep the demons and spirits in line, you know? So here we are to bust you out of Hell.”

“But I deserve to be here,” said Seth, and felt fresh hot tears spilling over and down his cheeks.

“Ah, that’s bullshit,” said Jamie. “You ain’t murdered no one. And you been a good friend to us, that’s got to count for something, right?”

“We still got the watches you gave us,” said Joey, brandishing his wrist. The watch was stuck at the impossible time of 6:66, Seth noticed dreamily.

“So we’re gonna get you out here, just you wait,” said Jamie.

Beside him, Cain spoke for the first time: “No one escapes from Hell,” he said.

Jamie Noble winked at Cain. “Buddy, you ain’t never seen us work.”

There were a lot of confusing details, and Jamie reciting things in Appalachian-inflected Latin, and Joey resting his hands on various places in the ice and concentrating, but eventually Seth found himself lying on the ice, his teeth chattering and his extremities aflame with pain, but free. Joey wrapped a blanket around him, and only then did Seth realize he had been naked all that time. “Take it easy, boss,” said Joey. “We’ll have you out of here in no time.”

“I know it probably feels like it’s been a long time,” said Jamie, “But time passes funny here. It’s probably only been a few minutes above. We got a portal waiting just a ways from here, you’ll be back in Laredo before the audience even clears out.”

Seth lay on the ice, shaking and stunned with amazement and gratitude. He felt reborn, redeemed. Everything was going to be different now. “Guys,” he said through his chattering teeth as they helped him up and started walking across the frozen plain, “I swear, I’m gonna find Dean and Roman and tell them how sorry I am. I’ll make it up to them somehow. I’ll make it up to Kane. I’m going to start all over and do it right.”

Jamie looked up at him, his face affectionate and sad at the same time. “No you won’t,” he said. “You’ll convince yourself this was a dream or some kind of hallucination by morning, Seth. You won’t change nothing, and you know it.”

Seth sobbed once into the icy wind, and buried his face in the blanket, and didn’t contradict him.

“It’s okay,” said Joey, wrapping an arm around him. “It’s okay, Seth. We’ll have your back anyway.”

“Even if you don’t know it,” said Jamie.

 _Even if I don’t deserve it,_ thought Seth.


End file.
